12.22.2008

Love: Live in London (US, 1970)

Much-maligned late line-up’s two LPs from ’69 and ’71 plus previously unreleased Live In London 1970 set.

Here you have the live set, recorded in London.I know... more classic rock and psych than garage... but still a great document that includes "my little red book" !.

Forever Changes purists look away now. The line-up that Arthur Lee put together in 1968 after disbanding the original band in a fit of pique when their orchestral masterpiece failed to sell in the US, are not an inferior version of Love. And so productive were the new band’s studio sessions for 1969’s Four Sail (Love’s final album for Elektra) that they also gleaned the double LP Out There, released by new label Blue Thumb just three months later. Doggone’s canine subject matter and epic drum solo may have dated, but the romantic Willow Willow is ravishing, while the closing Gather ‘Round features an Arthur lyric as unfathomable and deceptively beautiful as Andmoreagain’s one about the snot caked against his pants. The live set from 1970 shows the new line-up tackle all five albums with aplomb (an achingly tragic Signed DC especially). Clearly at home to the smog and dissolute London vibe, Love stayed in the UK to record the uncharacteristically good-natured False Start, featuring a certain Jimi Hendrix on explosive opener The Everlasting First. But the good vibes were short lived and Love broke up a few weeks after False Start came out. Shame! (Jenny Bulley)

I saw Love open for the Kinks at the Fillmore East in (approx.) Dec. 1970. At the time The Kinks had their big hit "Lola". As I remember this new lineup was quite good but The Kinks fans in the audience literally booed Love off the stage. It was really sad. And when the Kinks came on they were obviously very drunk and sounded awful. For a number of years after that I held a grudge and wouldn't even listen to the Kinks music. Luckily I saw how stupid that was as they are now one of my all-time favorite groups - along with Love.

EXCELENT POST!Great sound quality!I love FOUR SAIL the last Elektra album by the new-line up, well represented here with four tracks.Cool versions of some old favourites too...Interesting the comment by YankeeBoy...I was lucky enough to see Arthur Lee & Love in Edinburgh, Scotland a couple of times in 2002.UNFORGETTABLE!

Happy to see this post. Never got a chance to see Love and didn't really know about them other than hearing a couple of songs once in awhile on XRT in Chicago, but thanks to shares like this, Arthur Lee and whatever band he put together is high on my playlist. Really, really underappreciated, this music is some of the best of the sixties. A shame really that more people haven't discovered Arthur Lee. Thanks for the share.

Kinks audiences must've been a bit too partial. After seeing the Kinks in the 80s (and getting a Ray Davies autograph) I talked with a fan who several years earlier had been to a Kinks/Capt. Beefheart concert and said Beefheart did not go over well. Why the prejudice, I wonder?